Saturday, January 17, 2015

Masters of Money: Marx

Got to see the one on Marx, which is below. Come to think about it, not only Hayek is an odd choice for a conventional view of capitalism (even Friedman, I suggested Schumpeter in the previous post, would be a better one), but also the title is a weird one. Not sure Marx was a master of money, whatever that means.

The whole thing is a bit shallow. The equalization of Stalinism and the limits of the Soviet system with Marx's theories, and even the complete lack of discussion of Marx's ideas (on that read this). Seriously, Rajan and Roubini never read Marx. No serious economics scholar of Marx was interviewed. Yes Harvey and Ali, or Zizek for that matter, are not economists, even if they have read Marx. And Marx was, above all, an economist, even if that's the field in which he is not studied anymore. Also, the notion that capitalism is just profit seeking behavior is preposterous (for more on that). On the positive side, from my perspective, the type of crisis discussed is a realization crisis.

Footnote on the notion that Marx's propositions still are very radical, as said in the intro to the BBC episode: it should be taken with a grain of salt. Yes he thought that communism would abolish private property, but was also for "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax... free education for all children in public schools... [and the] abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form." So some of these ideas are now common sense. Radical stuff indeed.

Their advice, if you want to understand it better you should read it. Yes, given the stuff they did, you probably should.